I'm fairly new to cosplay, I made an assassin's creed costume a couple months ago for the Edmonton Expo and also for Halloween.
It was almost 100% sewing which I have never done before haha.
But I had the help of a lot of tutorials and I love how it turned out!

Here's a pic:

The blades were made out of ball bearing slides.
I made a locking mechanism where when I pulled on a string (attached to a ring on my finger) the blades slide out.
Makes a really awesome metal-clink-slide-out noise

My next project is a much more difficult and completely opposite of the assassin's creed costume. I'm making the full Samus Varia Suit.

I've decided to go with an EVA foam build for some of it and craft foam for the rest.
For painting the pieces I am going to coat in Plasti-Dip then some kind of paint primer
followed by my paint choices (going to be metallic) then a gloss finish/sealer.

I'm going to be making it much like Pixelninja's Suit she re-made in 2010, I'm absolutely in love with it!
Here's a pic of her suit:

I plan on adding all the lights on the suit and the arm cannon.

As this is my very first project like this, I would love to hear any comments/suggestions/criticisms.

You can see there are some gaps and stuff where i connected the foam with glue. I kinda tried to fill in the gaps with hot glue, and I'm hoping that when I spray it over with Plasti-dip that it will get rid of most of the blemishes.

Here's a pic of the gun with a few coats of plasti-dip and a coat of paint

The under chest piece rib thing

The chest part that lights up on top of the other chest plate stuff...

So I'm painting a few more of my pieces and started working on the helmet which I'm kinda struggling with. I have to use multiple pieces glued together to get the right shape but it's giving it a very boxy look. Is there something I can use that's like bondo but for foam? Something I can sand and smooth?

This is looking so good! The materials you chose are the best for this kind of Project, I've found, and I like the touch of coating it in Pasti-dip! I have no crit as of right now, but I'll keeping an eye on this project!

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Currently planning for Ikki-con '11. Will prolly only go one day.

Been working on my shoudlers and I did them with pepakura. Here's on the progress:

Made out of foam

Plasti-Dipped then painted

Edges and stuff aren't really as smooth as I wanted it. Kinda thought the Plasti-Dip would hide my inperfections but it really doesn't. Looking ok tho I think.

And a quick look at how my proportions are going:

Sorry for looking so scrubby haha, it's late at night and I just wanted to get these pics. I probably won't be using that helmet as it's looking a little too boxy. I need it much more smoothed out so I'm thinking of just doing it with pepakura then fibreglass/bondo method. Any suggestions?

I'm gonna be a bit blunt, and say you need to slow down.
You're making great progress, but you're sacrificing a lot of the detail that turns a costume from good to great. The shoulder bells particularly are what stopped me.
Plastidip won't hide imperfections. You need to sort those out before you dip them, and definitely before you paint them.
You really need to work on your seams and smooth and fill any imperfections. From what I can see, it really looks like you didn't bother to do any smoothing aside from the initial cutting of the EVA. You didn't even bother going over it again with a sharp knife to smooth out the cuts, let alone sand it down with a high (fine) grit sandpaper?

You really are doing great work, but I don't think you're putting as much patience into it as you should. You're making a costume that could definitely be A-grade if you slowed down and learnt some easy techniques to produce a smoother finish. If you don't know how to go about it, jump over to the props and armour section and post up there. I could name a half dozen users on here who could be priceless help to you.

I'm gonna be a bit blunt, and say you need to slow down.
You're making great progress, but you're sacrificing a lot of the detail that turns a costume from good to great. The shoulder bells particularly are what stopped me.
Plastidip won't hide imperfections. You need to sort those out before you dip them, and definitely before you paint them.
You really need to work on your seams and smooth and fill any imperfections. From what I can see, it really looks like you didn't bother to do any smoothing aside from the initial cutting of the EVA. You didn't even bother going over it again with a sharp knife to smooth out the cuts, let alone sand it down with a high (fine) grit sandpaper?

You really are doing great work, but I don't think you're putting as much patience into it as you should. You're making a costume that could definitely be A-grade if you slowed down and learnt some easy techniques to produce a smoother finish. If you don't know how to go about it, jump over to the props and armour section and post up there. I could name a half dozen users on here who could be priceless help to you.

Thanks for the input!! I really appreciate it and actually agree 100%. I actually already started redoing some of the shoulders because I didnt like the rough edges. Took a bit of experimenting but it seems to be working.

So yeah that does look pretty bad. I took a dremel with very high grit to get a rough sand.

Then hand sanded the rest.

Think i got a bit more sanding to do then I'm gonna try doing a couple coats of Mod Podge. And for the ugly slit things cut into the foam I'm thinking about some kind of body filler like bondo? Not sure, but I'm going to test it.

By getting just a little closer to you, I think I could find it out
Just so these days would never ever have to end without a doubt
Ringing in a tone that slowly died and never will restart again
And all at once, I know everything is gone